5 2020 Candidates With Weird Skeletons In Their Closets

The next election promises to feature more muck-slinging than a meetup of poop/trebuchet fetishists (whom we assume refer to themselves as "scatpultists"). But before we get to that, the Democratic Party has to pick their fighter. But let's be honest here, you barely know who some of these people are, let alone how many skeletons might be hiding in their closets. That's why we've decided to make things a little bit easier on everyone by airing some candidates' weird-as-hell laundry. We've already told you that Joe Biden is a proven plagiarist, but did you know that ...

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5

Bernie Sanders Wrote A WTF Essay About Rape And Gender Roles

Bernie Sanders has been involved in politics since some of his fellow candidates were merely a glint in their parents' eyes, so it's not surprising that he'd have something unfortunate in his past. What's surprising is how unfortunately horny that something is. In the 1970s, Sanders wrote an article for an alt newspaper about how gender roles are bad -- a piece that opens by suggesting that everyone loves rape fantasies.

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A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.

A woman enjoys intercourse with her man -- as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.

Have you ever looked at the magazines on the shelves of your local bookstore? Do you know why the newspaper with articles like "Girl 12 raped by 14 men" sell so well? To what in us are they appealing?

Vermont FreemanWe weren't picking and choosing those quotes, by the way. Those are all in the first six sentences.

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The essay (you can read it here) also includes a dialogue between a man and a woman about how much they resent each other due to the roles imposed by society, ending with a sad "And they never again made love together (which they had each liked to do more than anything) ..." The overall point is right and holds up, but it's written in the most "30-year-old teaching assistant trying to get laid with impressionable college students" way possible.

After the essay resurfaced and started making the rounds in 2016, Sanders' spokesperson called it a "dumb attempt at dark satire [that] in no way reflects his views or record on women ... it looks as stupid today as it was then." Whatever you think of Sanders, we can all agree it's probably a good thing that he stuck to politics and didn't try his hand at screenwriting or romance novels.

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4

Tulsi Gabbard Is A Huge Fan Of Bashar al-Assad

Tulsi Gabbard was one of the first Democrats to announce a 2020 presidential run -- a head start that barely registers as a blip in the latest polls. Part of that is likely due to the "Tulsa who?" factor, but her long-term crush on a dictatorial enemy probably isn't helping much. See, since being elected to Congress in 2013, Gabbard has repeatedly voiced support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose primary policy could be best summed up as "war crimes for everyone."

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In 2015, Gabbard went before Congress to argue that the best way of defeating ISIS forces in Syria was for the U.S. to side with Assad in the country's long-running civil war. The only problem was that her definition of "ISIS" included the many rebel groups trying to oust Assad. When Russia then teamed up with Assad and started air-striking rebel positions, she hailed this as a win for "counterterrorism." Something tells us she's the type of person who starts clapping and hooting whenever an X-Wing gets shot down in Star Wars.

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In January 2017, Gabbard secretly traveled to Syria and met with Assad as part of a "fact-finding mission." If her aim was to start a political dialogue, she certainly accomplished that. After she returned to the U.S., the Democrats and GOP teamed up to drag her ass, on account of how it was maybe illegal and definitely inappropriate for her to take it upon herself to negotiate with an enemy nation. It also later turned out that her trip was funded by a charity reportedly tied to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), a group with such a hard-on for Assad that it sent thousands of its own members to fight on the front lines against the rebels.

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Several months later, Assad killed 89 people and injured over 500 in a chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Shaykhun. Gabbard was quick to announce that she was "skeptical," and pointed to how there were "a number of theories" about what happened. She didn't specify what these "other theories" were, but that's probably best, considering that the most popular alternative places the blame on "an al-Qaeda affiliated group funded by George Soros and the British.".

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Well, if the way he treats the people who work for him is any guide, we're probably fine without the guy. Whenever Schultz feels compelled to give a gift to an employee, it's gotta be a custom Starbucks gift card worth roughly $4 and F-you cents.

As Jeremy Repanich describes for Deadspin, one of the first things Schultz did after buying the Seattle SuperSonics in 2001 was kill the long-standing custom that the team owner would buy holiday gifts for the staff. When Schultz received word that a co-owner was handing out gifts, he (feeling a little upstaged) began issuing staff with special gift cards that, unbeknownst to all, were only topped up to the value of $3.50 -- not even enough for one free drink.

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It's no surprise, then, that Schultz's clearest proposals are "[going] after entitlements" and killing that commie "free healthcare" talk. If it was up to him, Social Security and all that crap would be replaced with about three-fourths of a coffee cup.

2

Amy Klobuchar Is A Cartoonishly Terrible Boss

Currently, all that most people know about Amy Klobuchar is that she's running for president. You have to dig a little deeper to find out there's much more to her than that. Like her (allegedly) awful temper, awful managerial style, and awful way of being.

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In a recent profile by The New York Times, several people who'd worked in Klobuchar's congressional office came forward to talk about the abuse and mistreatment that she regularly leveled at them. This often came in the form of verbal abuse, with former aides speaking of how if she thought that they'd "failed" her, Klobuchar would embarrass them in full view of visitors or other staffers. It's like the setup for a sitcom episode where the staffers pull an epic prank on the pointlessly mean boss, only in this case, the punchline is "She might be president."

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Klobuchar's defense? Basically "Yeah, that sounds like me."

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It was also common for aides to be "asked" by Klobuchar to perform housekeeping duties, like cleaning her chambers or washing dishes at her home -- with one standout example being how she got so hangry on a flight that she ate a salad with a comb, which she then handed to her aide with instructions to clean it. The overall feeling at her office seems to be "This is not what I signed up for" (inanimate objects included).

At one point, Klobuchar and her top confidantes even contemplated sabotaging the job prospects of a former aide by telephoning their new employer and spreading some salacious muck. It was for this reason that several of them started saving copies of emails that Klobuchar had sent them, lest they needed them to protect their reputations in the future. Which is behavior we'd expect from mob accountants, not employees of a politician whose campaign slogan is "Minnesota nice."

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Unsurprisingly, Klobuchar's office has one of the highest turnover rates in the Senate, and in fact, some have suggested that this is the reason she's falling behind in the polls. She's pissed off so many people that there's no one left to vote for her.

1

Cory Booker Has An Imaginary Drug Dealer Friend Called "T-Bone"

It isn't unusual for politicians to invent constituents when they need to make a point. Hillary Clinton has the "Deplorable." Donald Trump has the "Real American." Cory Booker, meanwhile? He has his very good (and very real) friend "T-Bone."

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According to Booker, T-Bone was a drug lord he met after he moved to a "dangerous" part of Newark in the '90s. Booker says he walked up to this hardened criminal and said, "Yo, man, wha's up?" one day, as one does. T-Bone then "leaped" in front of him and said, "Who the **** do you think you are? If you ever so much as look at me again, I'm going to put a cap in your ass." The likelihood of a for-realsies drug lord using the phrase "put a cap in your ass" notwithstanding, Booker and T-Bone soon became friends, and did whatever drug lords and preppy valedictorians did together. Like, um, reenact Dangerous Minds?

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The relationship between the two eventually died after Booker got elected mayor of Newark in 2006. They still took rides around the hood in T-Bone's car, and that's when he revealed that he had several warrants for his arrest -- a revelation that caused a "rift ... as wide as the Grand Canyon" between the two. The future candidate forever regretted not being able to "save this young man" from either his criminal leanings or the genetic condition that caused him to age in reverse.

Booker never saw T-Bone again, but he vowed never to forget his friend, and so spent the next decade bringing him up at every opportunity, from magazine interviews to campaign speeches. Booker has never definitively confirmed whether this person truly exists. He once described T-Bone as both "1,000% real" and "an archetype," which suggests that he's Schrodinger's Drug Lord. Actually, scratch that. We found video evidence that T-Bone is real. Viewer discretion is advised:

Also, we'd love to know more about you and your interesting lives, dear readers. If you spend your days doing cool stuff, drop us a line at iDoCoolStuff at Cracked dot com, and maybe we can share your story with the entire internet.